Sunday, November 18, 2012

I love My OT Seminars!

I had a great time presenting in Nashville and Louisville this week. The jockey next to the race horse posed with me. I took a photo of my activity display which I think looks interesting in contrast to the wild green and yellow carpeting.

One of my favorite sensory motor activities shared by a participant is to have the student remove a straw wrapper, bunch it into a tiny ball and then blow it through a straw. So the student is working on both oral motor as well as fine-motor skills.

Someone else suggested putting toys inside a sensory bean box and then showing a toy that the student needs to find a match to by feeling inside the box. I have done this before with objects in a bag, but not a sensory box. I like this variation.

Someone else suggested stabilizing paper for one handed cutting by placing it on a cookie sheet with magnets. She described using 2 pieces of wood to hold the paper in place. I am not quite visualizing this, so if anyone can share a photo of this adaptation, I would love to see it.

I suggested working on the tripod grasp by pushing push pins along an outline on paper until the shape pops out of the paper. An OT suggested gluing a stetro grip to the push pin to promote the tripod grasp. Someone else suggested using golf tees, corn prongs and tooth picks in the same way.

Squeezing eye droppers strengthens the tripod fingers and someone suggested making a color matching activity with different color paint in egg carton sections and adding more with eye droppers to the corresponding color section. Lastly an OT shared how successful she is using the motorized Wiggly Squiggly pen.

OTs also recommended the following apps which I have not yet explored:

Isequence (drawing faces)

English cursive letter practice

Verbally- a word prediction program

Rapid typing

Cookie Doodle

Drawing pad

Sock Puppet

bugs and buttons

Toca boca

Pepi play

Free App Friday

Albert

Stack the States

Ready to Print

I can't guarantee that I copied these down accurately but hope that this is helpful.

Now for a funny story.....

On my flight back I was one of the last to board a very full flight. I saw a rather large woman sitting next to the window reading People magazine and a large man sprawled across the aisle seat focused on his Ipad. I sat in the seat in the middle. Neither of them looked at me or one another. Then after 30 minutes into the flight the woman held the magazine out to him and said, look this man looks just like you!!! It turned out that they were married and always leave the seat between them empty for a thinner person!!!